Shabaka Hutchings

Bandleader and saxophone and clarinet player; member of the Comet Is Coming and Sons of Kemet

My favourite thing about the summer is you can be outside without any particular reason – hanging out on the corner or sitting in parks without any objective. And playing to audiences has a different vibe: people are happier, they’ve been outside all day getting loads of vitamin D and powering up. I feel like people hibernate all year, storing up their energy acorns, then in summer they let them go.

This summer I’m on the road constantly: we’re doing two tours of the States, and in July we go to Martinique – taking the music back to the Caribbean. In the midst of all the touring I find that lethargy of having to sit on the bus or train for hours means your spirit or vibe gets into a bit of a slump, even though when you go to each of the venues everyone around you is revved up. So this is music to get me going – it’s something where you put it on and go: “It’s gonna be all right.” Going to the gym is a similar thing: getting you excited about moving your body.

There is something cool about Tobe Nwigwe’s flow. I know it’s a reductive term but there’s something about the way he raps that takes me back to being a teenager and looking at artists with the definitions of “cool” and “uncool”. It’s a slow, mellow, bubbling track, simmering away under the surface.

Morris Brown by OutKast is a feelgood track – they’re using New Orleans instruments, so it has that southern marching band heritage. Africa Hitech’s Do U Wanna Fight is one of those rudeboy bashment pieces that dips into Haitian voodoo rhythms and modern electronica. The groove itself is enough to get me revved up.

The Brother Moves On are a group from Johannesburg – I met them about five years ago. They were doing a show at the Roundhouse in London but wanted to do a smaller gig, so I took them to Total Refreshment Centre in Dalston and this is one the tunes they performed. For me it’s really associated with the time I saw them play the tune to a typical east London audience, and the crowd just going crazy for it. KB

Sons of Kemet play at the North Sea Jazz festival on Saturday 14 July. Their album Your Queen Is a Reptile is out now on Impulse!

Alexis Taylor

In the summer I like swimming in the sea. I’m not even a strong swimmer – I just like swimming. I’ve managed to be in some nice places over the years. Calvi in Corsica was the first time our daughter was in the sea with us and it was a beautiful, scenic place. I’m about to go to Helsinki for a few days with my wife – we’ve gone there a lot over the years, and we like to go to the outdoor flea market.

I was trying to think of songs that are good to listen and dance to but also reflect summer. It’s a playlist to warm you up for going out: it’s more easygoing at the beginning and gradually ups the tempo, so the final few tracks are at proper club beats.

So I began with something slow and contemplative, the quite nostalgic-sounding Jonathan Richman track. It’s somebody reminiscing about different summers of his life: he conjures up images that are quite universal, maybe to do with when you were a child or first had a girlfriend or boyfriend.

Groovy Situation by Keith Rowe is one of my favourite reggae records. The slow tempo makes me think of something you’d listen to outside of an evening, maybe after a barbecue. The Style Council song, meanwhile, is a beautiful electro ballad about somebody missing out on enjoying the summer because of a relationship coming to an end.

Class Action’s Weekend is an upbeat disco tune about someone choosing to have their fun after somebody has messed them about: the female vocalist is planning her night out and saying: “No, now’s my time.” The Mim Suleiman song is a more recent record. The vocals are really exciting and wild-sounding, and Maurice Fulton’s production has a frenetic and tribal feeling. It works well in the heat. KB

Eleanor Friedberger

I am a sun worshipper. I always say my best self is my summer version. I have olive skin so I can get very tan. Last summer I spent time on a Greek island called Donoussa, known for its nude beaches, and I had an epiphany. I was bashful at first and then I completely embraced the nude beach lifestyle. Bathing suits are disgusting after you’ve experienced swimming nude, so I’ve become a nudist.

This will my third summer as a member of a swimming club, although unfortunately everyone’s clothed. We swim in this beautiful lake on top of a mountain in Minnewaska state park, about 75 miles north of New York City.

I’m also hoping to do a lot of work on my house – I bought it with a friend four years ago and there’s a huge old knitting mill, a former factory building, that we’re trying to turn into artists’ studios. We’ve done a bit of work but unfortunately the roof is leaking.

Right now I’m at my parents’ house in Chicago, and it’s cold and rainy – the music I chose probably reflects that. My friend played me the Anna Domino song a few weeks ago and I’ve been listening to it over and over: it’s very repetitive and sounds half-sad and dreamy and meditative.

There’s a label called Light in the Attic with offices in Los Angeles and Seattle and it’s one of my favourites. They put out amazing stuff, like Annette Peacock, who was an inspiring innovator of electronic and avant-garde music. This song is from her first solo album and it’s just incredibly powerful. They also put out a compilation of Japanese folk and rock from 1969-73, including this Maki Asakawa track, which has the combination of happy-sad that I’m drawn to. She sounds like a Japanese Christine McVie. KB

Nabihah Iqbal

I love London anyway, because it’s my city, but I feel like it’s best during the summer. Especially when you get those rare times when the night is hot as well, so there’s not a divide between day and night, and people stay out late. I’ve got a busy summer ahead, with gigs and DJ sets and a residency on BBC Asian Network, but I’d love to go on some kind of relaxing beach holiday, somewhere like Mauritius or Jamaica.

All the tracks I’ve picked are quite uplifting. I’d say it’s a morning playlist, because it’d get you in the zone for the rest of the day, give you good energy. I picked Lauer’s HR Boss because it reminds me of the really hot summer from five years ago. I was out clubbing with some mates and this track came on at 4 or 5am. It’s this really euphoric, long, expansive dance track, and you could tell that everybody in the room was feeling so good and getting into it.

Jimi Hendrix’s Pali Gap is my favourite track at the moment. It’s a recent discovery for me and sounds quite different to his more well-known stuff. There are these nice parts of interlocking solos between organ and guitar. It’s perfect.

First Light by Freddie Hubbard is my favourite jazz tune of all time. The first time I heard it I was talking to someone and it came on and I stopped mid-conversation because it just blew my mind. I hope people will find a track on here they haven’t heard before and they’ll be really into it – the prospect of that happening makes me very happy. KB

Rina Sawayama

I like it when it’s hot. I’m used to spending summers in Japan, where it’s 35-40C. I used to go every year, always in summer. That humidity is a kind of hell. I like it, but a lot of people can’t handle it: it’s like a steam room.

London really changes in summer. It hits 16C and everyone’s topless in the park – I find that funny. You know what I hate about summer, though? The bugs. I’ve already been bitten on my feet. And the city starts to smell weird – sewage and stuff. My ideal holiday right now would be Vietnam. I’ve been working solidly for 12 months, so I want to do absolutely nothing and be away from phones and stuff.

These are songs I hope make people feel good. They remind me of good times – parks, barbecues, drinking.

I’ve got salute’s Honey in there: he is coming out with super cool stuff. I love Khalid and Normani’s Love Lies. I saw a performance where Normani does this spin on stage, and falls to the ground with her leg up above her at her head. I don’t know how she does it – and in heels!

Carly Rae Jepsen is my idol: her writing is so pure. Backseat by her and Charli XCX is my favourite on Charli’s last album. I also love Jessie J’s new record: she’s had such a reinvention and is much more personal. Queen is beautiful, and the video is amazing as well. Janet Jackson’s Doesn’t Really Matter was on the soundtrack for The Nutty Professor, and I remember listening to it a lot when I was younger. It’s a classic. SL

Rina Sawayama will be playing European festivals this summer. Her EP Rina is out now

Susanne Sundfor

In Norway in the summer the sun sets around 10 and comes up again at five, but it never gets completely dark. I’m looking forward to spending the summer in Oslo, where I live, and going on road trips to the beach. I like the nature blooming, the sound of the ocean. I think my family cabin in southern Norway is the perfect summer holiday for me. When there’s good weather there, it’s very beautiful. And it has good childhood memories.

I’d say the songs in the playlist create a mood of poetic calmness – there are no bad feelings there. I think they’re perfect for a calm summer day: nothing’s really happening and you can just lie in the sun and listen to the playlist. I was also thinking of a road trip: driving through a landscape with trees and sunshine, like in that film Call Me By Your Name.

George Jones is one of my favourite singers – he’s got a lot of great country songs. I kind of prefer him over Hank Williams; I think he has a bit more edge. The Keith Jarrett song is from an album called Belonging, one of two he recorded with three Norwegian musicians. Gorgeous saxophones.

Johan Lindström is a fantastic pedal steel player and I feel like his album deserves as much attention as it can get. The song is called Sleepless Lapsteel, so clearly there’s a lot of lapsteel on it. It’s just two or three chords: a theme that goes over and over again but with different variations. It’s beautiful.

Amelia by Joni Mitchell is one of my all-time favourites. A lot of these songs are good for driving, or just travelling. And that’s what she sings about as well, about driving through the desert. It’s also about life and disappointment and living through it, but still seeing the beauty in things.

Maybe this playlist can give people a little break from their gadgets, and have some time to be absorbed in the music. I don’t think you can ask much more from people these days. KB

Susanne Sundfor tours the UK from 13 June to 17 August; she plays the last instalment of her audio-visual show Music for People in Trouble at Stay Out West, Sweden, 11 August

Marlon Williams

It’s coming to winter over here, but I’ve got a bunch of festivals around Europe over the summer so I’m going to manage to escape it – hang out in Spain and Portugal, get a proper European summer. I feel like summer’s such an equaliser to everyone. Everyone generally likes doing the same kinds of things, you know? Going to the beach, seeing different parts of the world.

The only thing is, I can’t think very well in the heat – I seem to be always walking around with a fuzzy head when it’s hot. For being creative the winter is probably better. But I’ll happily take the summer and not be creative for a while.

I love making playlists. I believe you can make an incredible playlist from rubbish songs – it’s an organisation of things in relation to one another, and there’s really no limit to the possibilities of creating a mood. I thought I wasn’t really a summer playlist kind of guy, but then I looked at my recent listens and I was like, “Ah, man, this is like a stroll on the beach.” There’s a sunny veneer to them, something free and easy. I hope people build their own memories around the songs.

Summer’s so intrinsically linked with the idea of endlessness for me, so there’s a few songs here that seem to go on for ever, but in a nice way. Like Twentytwo by Sunflower Bean – it’s got that rolling sense of cyclical eternity: it finishes and you’ve forgotten where you started.

With the Lonnie Johnson and Cut Worms songs, there’s a sweetness to them – very earnest and loving and direct. Just a guy looking for love. The Cut Worms one has a really catchy and beautiful melody; it’s got an atmosphere you can get lost in.

When I first listened to Touchstone by Laura Jean I thought, “This is the sort of music everyone should want to make.” The last album she brought out was a very personal and hushed folk album, but here she just delves into this hook-ridden pop world. The universality of pop music, when you let it wash over you, is undeniably powerful, and she’s written what I think is the perfect pop song. KB

Marlon Williams tours the UK from 12 July to 16 August. His album Make Way for Love is out now on Dead Oceans

Nubya Garcia

Next week I head to Australia, then Oslo. I’ve been to Norway before but a different part. It’ll be cool to see the fjords. Being outside is my favourite part about summer: the UK is so grey that everyone just soaks up the sun when they can. The only problem with summer is it’s too short – I want it all year round.

Driving in the sun is where I started with this playlist. I thought, “What would I want to hear if I was driving, or on the beach, or reading a book in a garden?” I reckon the best time to listen to it is probably afternoon, early evening. In summer I wouldn’t be up before 11 anyway.

There’s a couple of songs in there that are just what I’m listening to at the moment: I added Swali Planet Vision today because I saw Kwake Bass’s set last night. I love tracks that put a little spring in your step, or you can just chill to. Nai Palm’s Have You Ever Been (to Electric Ladyland) is a Hendrix cover and I can’t stop listening to it.

I’ve been rinsing [The Elements] by Joe Henderson and Alice Coltrane ever since I did it at a gig with Maisha. I’d love to be able to write a tune like Fire. Amadou & Mariam’s Bofou Safou is a jump-up track for me. I’m not a techno head; I haven’t learnt the ways yet. So I’m always looking for stuff that has that pace but isn’t house.

I hope the playlist makes you feel good. It’s meant to be like when the sun touches you and you’re warmed. That, in musical form. SL

Tom Ogden

I like summer – you can have a beer earlier on, and everyone’s in a good mood. But I’m very pale so I always have to put sun cream on – factor 50. I found out the hard way that you can get sunburn on your elbows.

These are the kind of tunes I’d listen to driving in the car, with the windows down, on a picturesque drive in the British countryside with a lot of greenery. I hope it brings to you the summery feel I get from it.

I picked the Real Thing’s You to Me Are Everythingbecause it reminds me of when I used to work in a hotel, working on weddings and 80th birthday parties and singles night. That would always be on the playlist. I remember doing a lot of shifts when it were boiling hot outside, and I was inside in a waistcoat serving vegetables. I can remember that song vividly, seeping into my consciousness.

The Beach Boys are the ultimate soundtrack to summer, and Sloop John Bis one of my favourites. It reminds me of my dad, because we always listened to it growing up. My dad works in the navy, and a lot of the words in it are about being away on a ship.

Ever since I’ve been a teenager and I’ve started drinking and going out in the sun and having memories with my mates, it’s always Oasis you put on – they’re my band to soundtrack the sun. I chose Whatever because it sounds free and euphoric and always puts me in a good mood. KB

Blossoms play Liverpool, 8 June; the Isle of Wight festival, 23 June; and TRNSMT festival in Glasgow, 1 July. Their album Cool Like You is out now on Virgin EMI

Justice (Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay)

Xavier: Paris is nice in summer – it’s relatively empty, especially mid-August. It’s so long since I spent time in Paris but, unfortunately, it’s not going to happen this year – we’re playing festivals and a big stadium gig with MGMT.

With the playlist we’re going for a blend of classic and modern. Sometimes we listen to music with more energy, but 90% of the time we listen to music that is kind of chilled. Usually I tend to have music on only in the background, when I’m at home, or on planes and in cars. Whatever music you’re listening to, it can’t be better than in a car.

Gaspard: It’s a good summer playlist – lots of melodies and harmonies. We have an affection for real musicianship: King Gizzard and the Wizard Lizard and BadBadNotGoodstudy music in a very academic way, and what they get from it is refreshing.

Meteor One by Arpadys is an old French disco band I recently discovered. I like everything about it: the heavy bass, the synthesisers, the gloomy but funky mood. I have a soft spot for Did it Ever? by Drakkar Nowhere: it’s by our friend Morgan Phalen who sings for us. It’s just really beautiful and well-crafted pop music.

Xavier: I love Ty Segall’s Every 1’s a Winner because it sounds a lot like T Rex, who I love. And GENER8ION’s Close (to the Metal) is an excellent track, but not the danceable kind. It’s very hippie and overwhelming. It’s probably the best electronic track I’ve heard in the last five years. The first time I heard it I was a bit jealous if I’m honest; it could be the soundtrack of a movie, like Blade Runner. SL

Justice play Parklife festival in Manchester, 9-10 June. Their new album Woman Worldwide is due 24 August on Ed Banger/Because

Goat Girl: LED (Ellie) and Rosy Bones

Ellie: I love the summer and the sun. Recently on our tour we stopped off in the Peak district, walked down a long, straight path and got in a stream fully clothed, because it was such a nice day. It’s definitely a lot less grim touring the UK when the weather’s good.

We put the playlist together as a band – I chose Biig Piig and Ben Hauke. It’s rare when you hear something you really connect to, but I heard Biig Piig on 6 Music and her voice is amazing, very soulful. I also really like the honesty in her lyrics. It sounds downbeat and loungey and relaxed, the kind of music that, if you were a stoner, you’d sit and have a spliff to.

The Ben Hauke track kind of reminds me of St Germain. I used to go to his gigs when I was really young, because he’s also from south London, and he used to come into the cafe that I worked in. He’s a really talented DJ and producer. It sounds quite jazzy – I listen to a lot of that kind of music at the moment. I really like going to gigs with guitar bands, but when I’m at home I mainly like to listen to music that’s a bit more chilled out.

Rosy: I reckon this would be a good playlist for when you’re in the garden around 2pm and it’s really sunny. If you put it on at a barbecue everyone’s going to get into it. I picked songs I think are really banging – the last four on the playlist are mine. I really like Ethiopian jazz so I chose Mahmoud Ahmed: it’s really interesting to listen to and feels different, quite sinister-sounding, like something bad’s going to happen, and I like that. I also wanted to represent good female music – I listen to a lot of Princess Nokia and this is my favourite song from her album.

Goat Girl’s self-titled debut is out now on Rough Trade. This summer they play a number of festivals including Larmer Tree, Salisbury, 19-22 July, and Green Man, Brecon Beacons, 16-19 August

Laura Veirs

I’m taking the summer off and going to San Juan Island [in Washington state] where my parents live. They have a small sailboat and sometimes we see orcas. One time they swam right under our boat – my sons were blown away. I’m also going backpacking with friends: every year we go for two nights, deep into the mountains.

I really love having warm bones in summer. In the [Pacific] Northwest my bones get cold in winter – it’s like England – and I can’t sleep unless I take a warm bath. You don’t have to do that in the summer. But down in Portland, it’s been getting outrageously hot. It must be climate change: when I first lived here it was never in the hundreds, now it is for days in a row. We’re not set up for that: we just sweat under fans with cold packs on our foreheads trying to sleep.

For this playlist, I picked songs that are like a dopamine blast: upbeat, breezy. With winter you want to get more introspective, a little darker. Not in summer. Annalisa Tornfelt’s Just for a Day is a little bit melancholy but it still refers to summer: lying on the grass or the beach, that feeling of being comfortable outside, driving …

I also love Khruangbin. They do instrumental, old-time soul. I saw them recently in Portland and now I’m hooked on their song August 10.

I learned about Amanda Bergman through First Aid Kit, because they’re friends, and I interviewed her for my podcast about parenting musicians. Her voice is beautifully rich and deep. Everyone loves that feeling of finding something you haven’t heard before, and she’s that for me. That song Golden just makes me feel great.

I love Cass McCombs’s Bum Bum Bum. It’s kind of a dark song about racism, but I like songs with opposing elements, where it has a dark lyric and a bright feel. I try to do that sometimes in my songs. Juxtapose. Surprise the listener. SL

Laura Veirs’s UK tour ends in Brighton on 11 June. Her album The Lookout is out now on Bella Union

Orono Noguchi

This summer we’re playing a bunch of festivals around the world – I’m looking forward to Lollapalooza [in Chicago] and Primavera [in Barcelona].. But when we’re not on tour my ideal summer day is staying in the shade, eating good food, drinking some kind of fruit juice and reading a book maybe. I don’t like the heat, so I don’t actually like summer that much. But everyone seems to be in a better mood than me, so I guess that’s good.

For the playlist I’ve gone for some cool songs. They’re not really party songs – I mean, you could party to them, I guess, but they’re more chill. Chill but upbeat. I hope that when they’re listening to this playlist, people feel slightly less lonely than sitting in their room in the dark watching YouTube.

Block Game by Rozwell Fitzroy is underrated. I feel like it should have 10 million listens by now because it has all of the secret ingredients you need for a hit song in 2018: it’s a fun tune with cool lyrics, cool sounds, cool vibes. But apparently it’s not working.

Boyz Seco Men by Chai is a song about boys that are cool but they’re out to get you … it’s hard to explain because it’s in Japanese and it’s very Japan-specific. It’s about boys basically, and it’s funny, but I can’t explain the jokes to you.

I really like the version of No Passion from Car Seat Headrest’s My Back Is Killing Me Baby. It sounds very summery to me, very breezy and chill. I like the beat and it has a catchy riff. The lyrics are about a hot flight attendant with good shoulders and masturbating in your bedroom. KB